FEATURE: Mike Tedesco gives Money in the Bank predictions

Wow – it feels like just yesterday I was making the drive to Philadelphia to go watch the Money in the Bank PPV and one of my favorite PPVs of the year is already here again. There’s something about this show that always winds up feeling bigger than all of the other “B” PPVs every year. Who could forget the 2011 event with the classic CM Punk vs. John Cena match for the WWE Championship? How about last year with that epic angle between John Cena and Mark Henry? There have been a lot of things to anticipate with this show. It also doesn’t help that whoever wins the briefcase is nearly guaranteed to be the next champion for the company at some point in time.

This year, the show is probably the second most important after WrestleMania XXX just because of the vacant championship. The sudden injury of Daniel Bryan seems to have thrown off much of their summer booking plans, so they really want/need to get this next decision right. The survey WWE sent around (as well as the poster put up by Amazon.com) pretty much says that Brock Lesnar is challenging whoever the champion is at Summerslam. I think the winner of the ladder match will be the one to face Lesnar. I doubt they’ll change the title at Battleground next month. They need to take all this time to establish the new champion heading into the war against Lesnar. Getting the decision on whom to put the title on is huge as Summerslam comes right at that time people who first subscribed to the WWE Network have their subscriptions coming up. The decision will also determine if people on the fence about the network will possibly subscribe. There’s a lot riding on the line here.

Needless to say, I’m really looking forward to seeing this show. Now, onto my predictions. All of the matches are as of the night before the show. If anything is added to the card on Sunday, then I apologize for this being out of date.

As of press time, Bad News Barrett is still listed as being in this match. I doubt he’ll be in it, but I’ll still keep him listed here. This is my pick to open up the show. Yeah, I know, it’s not exactly a crazy pick as they’ve opened up every Money in the Bank PPV with a Money in the Bank Ladder Match, but it’s important to establish credibility and this is a slam-dunk.

I’m really intrigued by this match. Just because of the sizes and reputations of most of the guys in this match, I think this will probably be the more high risk and probably entertaining of the two ladder matches. I can only see it really coming down to two guys in this one: Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose. Sorry people, I don’t see Dolph Ziggler ever getting out of the doghouse he’s in anytime soon. Obviously, the rivalry between Ambrose and Rollins is the big one here and should play into the ending. I also expect to see a big assist from Triple H in this one.

Prediction: Seth Rollins

Goldust and Stardust vs. Ryback and Curtis Axel

Stardust… Stardust… I’m not quite sure how I feel about this new Cody Rhodes. I definitely think this is still going to translate into brother vs. brother, but how soon will Rhodes turn on him? I think we’ll probably get a solid month or so of this Stardust gimmick before Rhodes makes the turn. When Stardust debuted two weeks ago, he dominated the match and picked up the win with almost no help from Goldust. Granted, that very well could have been because they were starting to run out of time on RAW, but it could have been planned that way as well. I think Stardust will dominate a good portion of this match and pick up the win. Eventually he’ll come to think that he wasn’t the weak link of the team – it was his brother, Goldust. It probably won’t go like I said at all, but this kind of writing allows me to fantasy book a little bit and maybe start up some healthy debates.

Prediction: Goldust and Stardust

Summer Rae vs. LaylaGuest Referee: Fandango

I’m not really sure what’s going on with this match or who I should really care about. The Fandango/Summer Rae thing was quite sudden and happened over social media, so if you slept through the segment where they recapped their tweets, then you missed it entirely. The Fandango/Layla union has been too short lived to even matter. Everyone in the match is a heel, and they’re not the type of heels the crowd usually roots for. I guess this PPV will have two bathroom breaks with this and the Divas Title match. I’m not sure what’s going to happen here. Whatever my prediction is will just be a flier.

Prediction: Summer Rae

Rusev vs. Big E

These guys fought at the last PPV, and I wasn’t interested then. Normally I’m a sucker for matches like this – two big guys going out to the ring and beating the crap out of one another – but this one doesn’t excite me. I really like Rusev, but Big E does nothing for me. I didn’t see any of his stuff in NXT. Apparently he’s good and has potential, but the old saying is potential doesn’t pay for the groceries. I’m not going to go off on a rant here on Big E, so I’ll just say with almost no fear of contradiction that will take the big “L.”

Prediction: Rusev

WWE Divas ChampionshipNaomi vs. Paige (c)

I honestly couldn’t be less interested in this match. Paige is a good worker, but she hasn’t clicked at all since making her debut the night after WrestleMania XXX by defeating AJ Lee for the WWE Divas Championship. She has no character and blew a great opportunity to showcase something in her verbal sparring with Cameron on commentary this past Monday. Naomi was super hot back in February until the recently released Aksana derailed her by crushing her eye socket. Since her return, she hasn’t captured that magic. Damn you, Aksana. Therefore, this match isn’t all that interesting to me. They strongly teased that the Funkadactyls will be breaking up for a few weeks now, and I expect that to happen during this match. Cameron will definitely play into the finish. I’m predicting that she’ll attack Paige right as Naomi is getting ready to finish her off. When Naomi gets in her face about it, Cameron will probably push or slap her, and that’ll be the end of the Funkadactyls.

This is one of the big matches I’m really looking forward to. All four guys can go, and it’s going to be awesome. The physicality is going to be off the charts if their interaction at the Payback PPV is any indication. Jimmy and Jey Uso are like sneaky-tough as nails. Harper and Rowan are sneaky-athletic. I can’t wait to see the mix of styles come to a head. This is the first real challenge the Usos have had since winning the WWE Tag Team Championships. I think with all the focus on crowning the new WWE World Heavyweight Champion, they’re not going to make any other changes. I see the Usos coming out on top, but this is far from over.

As I said in the opener, I think this match is probably one of the more important ones for the WWE because I feel they have to make the right decision on who to make champion just for their summer business. The other thing is there are a lot of up and comers in this match, like Roman Reigns, Cesaro, and Bray Wyatt. You have to make sure that they get big moments in this match to make it look like they belong as well as make sure they look good in defeat. To me, there’s a lot riding on getting this right.

The only decision that really feels like the right one is to give John Cena the championship. Yes, he’s going to be booed out of the building every night, and he doesn’t exactly seem like he’s been primed to be the champion these last few months, but it’s the only call they can make to have that big money match at Summerslam against Brock Lesnar. That’s an important match to get people signed up for the WWE Network. I think it’d be cool if they did some of those 24/7 shows on the Network for Lesnar and Cena in the weeks heading up to the match. It really could help them get to their goal of 1,000,000 subscribers, but that is another piece for another writing.

Anyway, they need to give the rookies a good showing, but Cena’s the guy that should go over. Reigns appears to be the guy the WWE is pegging to be the next top guy, so it would just be stupid to rush the title onto him rather than letting him have a big moment down the road with a lot of hype and buildup. I think he gets close to winning it until Seth Rollins pulls the carpet out from under him. Cesaro will be a champion one day, but he’s just not there yet character-wise. He’s been in mid-card feuds since joining with Paul Heyman and hasn’t done anything big of note yet since WrestleMania. They have to build him up a little more. Bray Wyatt is a huge star now and could be the champion, but I think he’s just scratching the surface on the dimensions of his character and having the title might hurt that a little bit if it’s too much too soon. Alberto Del Rio is in this match because they probably really didn’t think they were going to have to strip Daniel Bryan of the title, so they put him in this thinking it was a briefcase match at the time. Oh well, can’t take it back now. I’m not sure why everyone boos Sheamus. He’s dropped a lot of the silliness that I had a big problem with back in 2012 and puts on a good, physical match every week. How can you boo a guy who gives it his all every week? Sheamus is the WWE United States Champion right now, so the chances of him being a dual champion are low.

As for Kane and Randy Orton, they had a pretty interesting interaction on Friday Night Smackdown. Kane set up the ladder and held it up for Orton to climb and grab the titles. Orton then held him back from giving Roman Reigns a Chokeslam. I think Kane will start out helping Orton before turning on him in the match. That’ll probably cost Orton the title as well. All in all, it should be a great match with a lot of different angles to play to. I’m really looking forward to it, even if the end result I’m thinking of doesn’t exactly fire me up.

Prediction: John Cena

Well, those are my predictions for the show. What are yours? Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know!